HSC Workshop Series

When you hear the terms, “The Terrible Twos” or “Adolescence” most of us can conjure up visuals, behaviors, needs, or challenges associated with human beings in those phases of life. For decades researchers have studied humans as they grow and mature through various stages of development and have created benchmarks and expectations of everything from behaviors to needs for each stage. What if I told you that nonprofit organizations similarly grow and evolve through predictable stages or lifecycles? And, that each of these stages also have benchmarks and expectations of behaviors and needs! This is known as the Nonprofit Lifecycles Model and once we know it we can use it as a powerful tool to make informed and strategic decisions to maximize the success of our organizations.

Join us for a workshop that will provide a clear overview of the 7 Nonprofit Lifecycles including the unique characteristics, needs, and challenges of each. Participants will have the opportunity to explore real life examples of how each stage can show up in an organization, engage with the Lifecycles Model as a tool for organizational evaluation and “diagnosis” of needs & opportunities, as well as reflect on how this model could be leveraged within their current organization.

This workshop is excellent for all nonprofit leaders and board members but we specifically welcome those in a period of transition as understanding your organizational life stage can provide the framework for growth during change.

About the Presenter
Kristi Taylor is the Director of Leadership Development & Consulting Services at the Human Services Coalition of Tompkins County. Kristi brings over 15 years of professional experience working in the non-profit community with a specific focus in domestic violence and sexual assault victim service organizations. During her work, she has had the opportunity to advocate for survivors as they sought safety and healing through formal systems as well as during psycho-educational and peer support groups. Additionally, Kristi provides empowerment based self defense courses to those who live and identify as women, girls, and the LGBTQ+ community. Kristi is a skilled and knowledgeable trainer on the topics of abuse, trauma, and prevention strategies; who is passionate about improving community responses and safety for all. By bringing together her various work experiences and insights, Kristi provides high quality, knowledgeable, empathetic, and engaging learning environments for participants.

This event is in-person only and will not be recorded.

Masks are optional at in-person events.

All registration sales are final.

“Radical” might sound dramatic – but when it comes to accountability – it’s actually the most important thing to be defined. Radical generally refers to something that is fundamental, extreme, or goes straight to the root of a matter. Most leaders can describe what “amazing” looks like. Almost none can tell you what the floor is — the actual, non-negotiable minimum that has to be true before anything else matters. That gap is where accountability goes to die, and where good employees start guessing at what “doing my best” even means.

This isn’t about writing SMART goals. Using BEE Strategies’ signature BUILD‑ENGAGE‑EXECUTE approach, you’ll build a standard you actually wrote yourself — one made to stick, not to land in the recycle bin next week. Bring a real accountability challenge or employee issue you’re wrestling with; we’ll work through it live.

You’ll walk out with:

• The Radical Minimum Standard Worksheet — draft the real floor for your team or role in about 20 minutes flat
• The Standard-Setting Conversation Guide — turn your draft into a standard your team helped build, not one you handed down
• The Accountability Check-In Tool — a five-minute recurring habit that makes “we said we would” actually mean something

About the Presenter
Deborah Mohlenhoff is a public-sector executive, leadership educator, and team-development strategist with 30 years of experience spanning city government, higher education, and nonprofit leadership. She is the founder of BEE Strategies Consulting, where she helps municipal governments and nonprofits build highly functional teams and effective leaders. She most recently served as the founding City Manager for the City of Ithaca, New York, and previously as Chief of Staff to the Mayor and a 12-year elected member of the Ithaca Common Council — giving her a rare, firsthand view of both the staff and governance sides of local government. A certified Gallup CliftonStrengths facilitator, Deborah has designed and led strategic planning retreats, leadership development programs, and organizational assessments for municipalities, colleges, and nonprofits across New York State, including 12 years as Program Director of Leadership Tompkins. Her work is grounded in the BEE Collective, the leadership framework she developed to help organizations build a strong foundation, engage across complex relationships, and execute on a shared mission — turning individual leaders into truly high-functioning teams. Learn more at beestrategiesconsulting.com.

This event is in-person only and will not be recorded.

Masks are optional at in-person events.

All registration sales are final.

Nonprofits today are being asked to do the impossible: hold steady through funding volatility, generational leadership handoffs, and a rapidly shifting cultural and political landscape — all while staying true to the mission that got them here. It’s tempting to treat storytelling as a communications function, something reserved for the annual report or the year-end appeal. But story is also one of the most underused strategic tools an organization has for navigating change from the inside out.

Through this workshop, participants will learn how to:

• Utilize storytelling as a diagnostic tool to surface which organizational practices and norms still serve the mission — and which were built for a different era
• Tell their own story of leadership in relation to their organization, developing a clearer understanding of how and why they lead — and what that means for leading through this particular moment of transition
• Facilitate a storytelling process to build community and help people and teams sift through the disorientation of transition together
• Translate that internal narrative work into external storytelling that humanizes the organization for funders, board members, and the community — helping people see not just what the work is, but who it’s for

Participants leave with a practical framework for facilitating this work inside their own organizations, plus tools adaptable for both internal culture-building and external communications and fundraising.

About the Presenter
Dr. Laura Colket is the founder of Whole Human Leadership. In this capacity, she supports leaders to bring more somatic awareness, mindfulness, creativity, play and joy into their personal and professional lives so they can lead from a place of authentic connection and alignment rather than disconnection and burnout. Through somatic coaching, leadership cohorts, workshops and consulting, she helps people become the best versions of themselves so that they, their communities, and their organizations can thrive.

Dr. Colket is an experienced educator and leader with 20+ years of experience in the education and nonprofit sectors, and holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership and a master’s in Intercultural Communication, both from the University of Pennsylvania. She has lived and worked in Grenada, Haiti, Morocco and Thailand. She has expertise in program design, curriculum development, faculty development, organizational research, human-centered AI integration, global education, constructive dialogue, policy development, storytelling, teambuilding, somatic awareness and leadership development.

Her edited volume, ‘Becoming: Transformative Storytelling for Education’s Future’, is a collection of powerful stories about teaching, learning and leadership. It provides a framework for readers to reflect on (and tell) their own stories, in order to fuel personal, professional, and organizational transformation. Her latest book (in progress) provides a ‘leaders as healers’ framework, focusing on creating more humanizing workplace cultures. She is also creating a healing-centered leadership card deck, to support nervous system regulation alongside creative and purposeful leadership development.

This event is in-person only and will not be recorded.

Masks are optional at in-person events.

All registration sales are final.